carbona - Slashdot User

Wikileaks DDoS Attacker Arrested, Equipment Seized 429

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @04:53PM from the I-feel-safer-already dept.

kaptink writes "The self proclaimed hacker that waged a DDoS attack on Wikileaks has been arrested and has had all his equipment seized. What is interesting is that local police conducted the raid and not a federal authority such as the FBI. The Jester (th3j35t3r) who has a reputation for attacking websites he disagrees with is said to be trying to raise $10,000 in expected lawyers fees. If anyone is going to be alight in the whole Wikileaks debacle, its going to be the lawyers. Personally I think anyone who spells their nick with numbers in an effort to look 'leet' deserves to have their computer confiscated."

Mozilla Finds Flaw With Black Hat Video Stream 106

Posted by timothy on Monday August 02, 2010 @01:55AM from the fair-play dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla web security researcher Michael Coates found a flaw in Black Hat's paid video feed. The flaw allowed him to watch a live feed of the conference for free instead of the $395 a head to connect. Unlike many presenters at Black Hat, Michael responsibly disclosed the flaw to organizers, who quickly fixed the issue."

IEEE Looks At Kevin Costner's Oil Cleanup Machines 289

Posted by timothy on Sunday July 18, 2010 @04:56PM from the bright-guy-just-picks-bad-scripts dept.

richardkelleher writes "IEEE Spectrum takes a look at the machines developed by a company funded by Kevin Costner that are supposed to extract the oil from the Gulf waters. Is it possible that in the years since the Exxon Valdez, that Kevin Costner is the only one who has invested money into the technology of oil spill cleanup?"

Comment Use your own ears (Score 1) 849

by carbona on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @12:12AM (#30139522) Attached to: Can We Really Tell Lossless From MP3?

This debate is largely irrelevant to most people who don't have high end gear (particularly headphones which can be disturbingly revealing). It really comes down to your specific situation and equipment. I have run endless double blind tests with lossless files and LAME encoded MP3s (at -V2 and -V0 VBR quality) and I can safely say that I can't tell the difference between those formats. 128Kbps AAC and MP3s are a different story. I could hear discernible differences with those bitrates against the lossless versions. With Amazon and iTunes now offering DRM-free 256Kbps files, I find the issue nearly moot.

I say "nearly moot" because I refuse to regularly pay out a minimum of $10 for digital albums that don't have the overhead of printing liner notes and pressing CDs. But I have purchased several Amazon $5 albums and even an iTunes album that was $7 that included a high resolution PDF of the liner notes.

As a result, I still buy most of my music on CD and vinyl and archive the files to Apple Lossless and rip those to LAME -V0 VBR MP3s for actual listening. Why keep a copy of large lossless files if MP3s are good enough? Chalk that up to my fear that one day I may want to transcode those lossless files to a new format that improves compression and maintains transparency or storage prices for DAPs and media become so cheap that I might as well just use the lossless versions as my primary playback files.

1/3 of People Can't Tell 48Kbps Audio From 160Kbps 567

Posted by timothy on Monday October 19, 2009 @01:08PM from the might-include-yours-truly dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Results of a blind listening test show that a third of people can't tell the difference between music encoded at 48Kbps and the same music encoded at 160Kbps. The test was conducted by CNet to find out whether streaming music service Spotify sounded better than new rival Sky Songs. Spotify uses 160Kbps OGG compression for its free service, whereas Sky Songs uses 48Kbps AAC+ compression. Over a third of participants thought the lower bit rate sounded better."

Asus Plans Dual-Display E-Reader 199

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday September 08, 2009 @09:52PM from the blurring-the-lines dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "Yet more confirmation has emerged that Asus plans its own e-book reader. An Asus representative in the UK appears to have confirmed this, with the additional details that there may be a value-priced as well as a premium version. The article guesses at the price point for the low-end model — around £100 ($192). Unlike current e-book readers, which take the form of a single flat screen, the Asus device has a hinged spine, like a printed book. This, in theory, enables its owner to read an e-book much like a normal book, using the touchscreen to 'turn' the pages from one screen to the next. Asus showed off a prototype of the device at the CeBIT trade show in March." Reader NeverBotedBush adds, "Asus's e-reader will likely have color touch screens, a speaker, a webcam, and a microphone, along with the capability to make inexpensive Skype calls." The color screen rules out using E Ink technology, so long battery life seems to be unlikely.

Mozilla To Protect Adobe Flash Users 132

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday September 05, 2009 @09:17AM from the helping-those-who-don't-help-themselves dept.

juct writes "Beginning with versions 3.5.3 and 3.0.14 of Firefox, Mozilla is going to check the version of installed Adobe Flash plug-ins and warn users if it discovers an outdated version with potential security holes. Mozilla confirmed this new security feature and said that the Flash version check was part of a wider commitment to 'protect users from emerging threats online.' Just recently, a study confirmed that 80 per cent of users surf with a vulnerable version of Adobe's plug-in."

Comment Re:Apple declares: "Fuck it, we're evil." (Score 1) 326

by carbona on Sunday August 23, 2009 @10:49PM (#29168623) Attached to: Apple, Google, AT&T Respond To the FCC Over Google Voice

Score:4, Funny. Someone w/ mod points please get this to 5.

The Best and Worst Tech-Book Publishers? 271

Posted by timothy on Saturday August 15, 2009 @11:05PM from the little-pots-of-red-ink dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I am an author working on a technical book about an open-source software package. I am looking for a publisher, and I would like to hear experiences from any Slashdot authors. Who are the best publishers to work with and why are they great? Who are the worst publishers in the tech book business, and what nightmare/horror stories can you tell us about them? Any publishing company in particular you recommend avoiding? Any gems of advice (rights reversion, etc.) you can provide for first-time tech book authors?"

Sony Producing New PS3 Hardware, Slim Appears Likely 183

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 08, 2009 @11:34AM from the consoles-on-a-diet dept.

The Opposable Thumbs blog reports on a confluence of rumors and information leaks that suggest Sony will be unveiling a PS3 Slim sooner rather than later. Despite waning console sales, orders for PS3-related hardware have risen sharply. There's evidence to suggest that Sony is phasing out its 80GB model, which would help clear the way for a hardware revision. Some expect the official announcement to come as early as August 18th, during the gamescom expo in Germany.

What's In an Educational Game? 160

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday August 05, 2009 @12:50PM from the zombies-and-zombie-removal-tools dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I work at a non-profit whose mandate is to increase science literacy and awareness. One of the methods that we've started exploring is in making free, online educational games. Our target demographic for the games is kids aged 8-12, but there is no reason the games could not also appeal to a broader age range. What would you look for in an educational game? Does length and depth of gameplay matter to you, or would you rather play a trivial game with subconscious educational value?"

Music Industry Thriving In an Era of File Sharing 174

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 28, 2009 @02:21AM from the told-you-so dept.

levicivita notes ZeroPaid coverage of a recent study by the UK music industry's own economist showing that overall UK music industry revenues were up in 2008 (study, PDF). The study is titled "Adding up the Music Industry for 2008" and it was authored by Will Page, who is the Chief Economist at PRS for Music, a UK-based royalty collecting group for music writers, composers, and publishers. From ZeroPaid: "[T]he music industry is growing increasingly diverse as music fans enjoy a wide range of platforms to hear and consume music. Sales of recorded music fell 6% for example, digital was up 50% while physical dropped 10%, but concert ticket sales grew by 13%. In terms of what consumers spent on music as a whole last year, this surprisingly grew by 3%."

Strong Passwords Not As Good As You Think 553

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday July 13, 2009 @10:42AM from the still-better-than-'password' dept.

Jamie noticed that Bruce Schneier wrote a piece on a paper on strong passwords that tells us that the old 'strong password' advice that many of us (myself included) regard as gospel might not be as true as we had hoped. They make things hard on users, but are useless against phishing and keyloggers. Everyone can change their password back to 'trustno1' now.

Bike Projector Makes Lane For Rider 856

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 02, 2009 @01:21AM from the don't-cross-the-laser-line dept.

hh4m writes "Whether it's San Francisco, New York, or any bicyclistic city in between, you're destined to witness biker after biker dancing with danger, especially at night when visibility is uncomfortably low. Alex Tee and Evan Gant's LightLane device was recently just a concept but is soon to enter reality as a much-needed visual declaration of personal biking space. With a dire shortage of dedicated lanes, LightLane provides urban cyclists with a solution that adapts to them and any route they make take. The compact projector mounts easily to the rear of a bike frame and projects a bike lane-inspired linear pattern that provides great visibility and a familiarity that helps catch a driver's attention."

Comment Re:And? (Score 2, Interesting) 543

by carbona on Monday June 22, 2009 @01:54PM (#28425499) Attached to: SSN Required To Buy Palm Pre

Don't mod this down. The AC hits the nail squarely on the head. I've had to disclose my SSN number anytime I've signed a contract with a mobile carrier (and I've been on contract with most of them at one time or another). The real issue is why they are allowed to keep this information past the time it takes them to run a credit check. Most consumers "consent" to this when they sign that absurd multi-page TOS that not only gives the carrier the right to keep this information indefinitely, but also allows them share it with "trusted" partners.

My wife's personal information was stolen a few years back when a large public university in California had an internal database breach. The only "recent" contact she had with the university was a 4 year old grad school application for a program she wasn't even accepted to. Why the university felt a need to hang on to her information long past the time it would have provided any usefulness to the application process is a mystery, until one considers the value of that data for other purposes.

If anyone is interested in learning more about the sorry state of protecting one's own digital identity, I highly recommend reading "The Digital Person: Technology And Privacy In The Information Age" by Daniel Solove.

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